accidents. It is not known that they intended by this term something entirely devoid of attributes, nor is it even known that they used it only for something other than a body. Indeed, nothing in their speech demonstrates that they used it for anything other than what these people call a body. How, then, can it be said that it denotes only the opposite, when its use is known only for the existent—the opposite which they excluded from its meaning—and not for the nonexistent, the opposite to which they restricted it? Could there be any more radical distortion of the language and the Quran than this?

[The Term al-Samad]

Likewise, regarding His name al-Samad, nothing in the Companions’ statement, “He is the One who has no hollow interior,” indicates that He does not possess attributes. Rather, it provides stronger evidence for affirming attributes than for denying them, in several ways explained at length elsewhere.

Likewise, His words:

“There is nothing like Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.”
[Al-Shūrā: 11]

And His words:

“Do you know of any equal to Him?”
[Maryam: 65]

And similar passages do not in any way indicate the negation of attributes, nor do they in any way indicate the negation of what those employing this technical terminology call a body.

As for their appeal to the assertion that bodies are alike, this—if true—is a likeness known through reason. It does not establish that the language in which the Quran was revealed applies the term “like” to every body, nor that this language says that the sky is like the earth, the sun, moon, and stars are like the mountains, the mountains are like the seas, the seas are like dust, dust is like air, air is like water, water is like fire, fire is like the sun, and the sun